


i can't seem to let myself leave you

by kissmeinnewyork



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Pillow Talk, Romance, Tea, let them be happy, or just enemies and lovers, when you're in love with a genocidal maniac, you know that feel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23070955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissmeinnewyork/pseuds/kissmeinnewyork
Summary: But, most of all--she hates how she can scream all of this to his face and then, then, her fingers will accidentally brush his wrist and she forgets every single moral she’s ever had.Despite everything, there are still moments of tenderness between them. Thirteen/Master.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 141





	i can't seem to let myself leave you

**Author's Note:**

> title is from a lovely song called repeat until death by novo amor. gives me some doctormaster vibes. also i want to write a stupidly long thirteenmaster oneshot but my ideas are a bit all over the place so watch out for that
> 
> hope u enjoy
> 
> kudos/comments appreciated

The nights he stays are usually accidents. They are absolutely, one hundred percent unintentional, because when she wakes and sees him next to her she can still feel the hatred simmering in her stomach. Every time she sees him she’s reminded of how much she hates him. She does, really. She  _ does.  _ She hates how he laughs in the dust of his self-created wastelands. She hates how he can mindlessly kill and not have the ghosts of his victims relentlessly haunt him. 

But, most of all--she hates how she can scream all of this to his face and then,  _ then,  _ her fingers will accidentally brush his wrist and she forgets every single moral she’s ever had. Everything she stands for is completely undermined while the Master continues to exist. And it  _ enrages  _ her.

And yet...eyelids flutter open and their warped sense of morning bleeds through non-existent blinds, and she’s staring at the bare skin of his back and feeling the warmth of his body heat pulsing between them.

She should hate herself. She should think about what Yaz and Ryan would think, what Graham would think. What every other version of herself would think and the people who watched her lose her mind after the Master’s fingers lingered over yet another red nuclear button.

(Come to think of it, the other versions of herself would probably not be surprised. The Master has had her under his thumb for a lot longer than just her current regeneration. Her unwise devotion to this unhinged, unsalvageable man is not some grand revelation. It has been there since the dawn of time, where she happened to catch eyes with him aged eight and the rest was a war-tinged, destructive, effortlessly passionate and forever misguided future.)

She should hate herself. And she does, but the majority of her self-loathing is a product of way more than just him. She’s not going to give him that much credit.

So instead of hating herself, she is going to hold onto the brief, fleeting seconds of quiet where he is  _ here.  _ Where he is here, next to her, and not sunbathing on some desolate dwarf planet in the aftermath of one of his massacres. 

She can at least pretend it would be easy to love him when he is like this. Because,  _ Rassilon,  _ it is heartbreakingly difficult to do so otherwise.

She hears him breathe out deeply, watches as he shifts in the bed so he is no longer turned away but facing her. His eyes are dark. Hers are too, probably. They never sleep unless they are together. She doesn’t read too much into that--if a human psychologist even tried to begin to understand their ridiculous fuck-up of a relationship, they’d probably put it at  _ safety  _ or  _ intimacy.  _ There is nothing safe about what they have, and the intimacy is questionable too. 

It’s a mutual understanding. Maybe a rebellion, actually. Gallifrey would execute them for less. And there is something  _ exhilarating  _ about doing something Gallifrey would steal their regenerations for.

He chuckles softly to himself. “Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel… don’t you think?”

“What?” she murmurs, “Us?”

“Yes.  _ Us.  _ Never ending or beginning.”

She shrugs. His leg moves closer to hers underneath the covers, self-conscious or not, she’s uncertain. “Endings and beginnings have never meant a lot to me.”

“Now that is not a revelation. Your commitment to goodbye has always been extremely brittle.”

She blinks slowly. Ah, he’s not wrong. He’s never wrong when it comes to understanding her. Very few could compete. “You would call it a flaw.”

“I would. You’re too emotional.”

“You are too.” He gasps, affronted. She smiles a little. “Nobody does what either of us does on cold, hard logic alone. You are so, so angry and it makes you do terrible things. Everything you do is so motivated by  _ rage  _ and  _ hate  _ that you’ve forgotten that they are emotions at all and they’re just not  _ who you are. _ ”

He laughs bitterly. “And you say that like you’ve never thought that’s all I am.”

“I never have.” She says quietly. Her hand reaches out, skims the flesh of his arm. He does not flinch or pull away. “Perhaps that’s my problem.”

“Perhaps it is.” He slips out of her grasp, sitting up and turning out of her bed. She hears his feet drop on the carpet. “I’m going. The universe will begin to think I’m getting lazy.”

She scrambles to a sitting position. “At least stay for tea, first.”

“Tea? Is that what we’ve become now? People who have sex, fall asleep, then make  _ tea _ ?”

“I’m okay with that.”

(What she doesn’t say:  _ I’m okay with that, if that means you give me an excuse to love you a little longer. _ )

He sighs dramatically, but there is half a smile on his face. Her grin is effervescent. “Tea it is. But I refuse to make a habit of it.”

As she traipses through to the kitchen and fills the kettle, she thinks he’s wrong. 

The habit is already there. It’s a habit she needs to break, but she drops a tea bag into  _ his  _ mug and hears his humming as he strolls down the hall and there’s a wardrobe that’s half full with  _ his  _ clothes and--

It hurts to hate him. But it hurts to love him more.


End file.
